INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
European foreign ministers will meet at the end of January to discuss the lifting of sanctions on Syria, the EU foreign policy chief said on
Sunday in Riyadh ahead of a meeting of top Middle Eastern and Western diplomats and Syria&s new foreign minister.Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign
policy chief, said the foreign ministers would convene in Brussels on Jan
27 in an effort to decide how the 27-nation bloc would relax sanctions on Syria, Reuters reported.After 13 years of civil war, Syria&s
President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in a lightning offensive by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) a month
ago.The group has since set up a caretaker government in Damascus.Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditional on the new
Syrian administration&s approach to governing, which must include &different groups& and women and &no radicalisation&, Kallas said, without
elaborating.If we see the developments going to the right direction, we are ready to do the next steps…If we see that it&s not going to
the right direction, then we can also move back on this.Sunday&s conference, the first such meeting of Western and regional leaders hosted
by regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia since Assad&s ouster, comes as Damascus urges the West to lift sanctions to help international funding
flow more freely.The United States , Britain, the European Union and others imposed tough sanctions on Syria after a crackdown by Assad on
pro-democracy protests in 2011 that spiralled into civil war.But the new reality in Syria has been complicated by sanctions on HTS & and
some leaders & for its days as an al Qaeda affiliate.Germany, which is leading the EU&s discussion on sanctions, on Sunday proposed allowing
relief for the Syrian population, but retaining sanctions on Assad allies who &committed serious crimes& during Syria&s war.British foreign
minister David Lammy joined the Riyadh talks along with ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq,
Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as the U.N
special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.Discussions would focus on support for the interim Syrian authorities, &including mechanisms to hold
the Assad regime to account for the war crimes they perpetrated against the Syrian people,& the UK foreign office said in a statement
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